


i’ve lost it all (i’m just a silhouette)

by TriptocaineAndThirium



Category: Heavy Rain
Genre: (kind of), Angst, M/M, Norman Jayden (mentioned), One-Sided Relationship, Past Character Death, Shaun Mars (mentioned), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:51:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15569094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriptocaineAndThirium/pseuds/TriptocaineAndThirium
Summary: “Rain never hurt anybody. It never can. But for Ethan Mars, this fact is untrue. The rain has taken something from him - someone. Thankfully, it was not his son that perished. But the loss hurts all the same.”





	i’ve lost it all (i’m just a silhouette)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mars and Jayden: Assorted Prompts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952842) by [dadsBBQparty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadsBBQparty/pseuds/dadsBBQparty), [Liza0111](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liza0111/pseuds/Liza0111). 



> The title is from the song Youth by Daughter.
> 
> Scenario used: Ethan and Norman both make it to the warehouse, but Norman dies fighting Scott.

The rain patters harmlessly against rooftops, splashing against the roads and streets. Rain never hurt anybody. It never can. But for Ethan Mars, this fact is untrue. The rain has taken something from him - someone. Thankfully, it was not his son that perished. But the loss hurts all the same.

Ocean blue eyes misted over with tears he cannot find the strength to cry, Ethan drifts past the headstones as if he himself were a spectre come to observe the fallen. In some ways, he feels like one. Shaun is all that he has left anymore. He feels lucky to have even been graced with that, he feels undeserving of everything the world could grant him, for it has taken so much from him already.

Normality is but a fleeting memory to him now. His heart feels apt to give out under the crushing weight of his guilt. Jason, Shaun’s kidnapping, this. All of it is his fault, and he wishes, to any god that could hear his cries, that he could be granted a chance to rewind, to turn back time, if it only meant he could change a fate so inexplicably intertwined with his own, to save a life so unpredictably cut short. How he wishes he could wake up and look at himself without seeing the dark circles below his eyes from lack of sleep, without entertaining the notion of taking the gun hidden away in his drawer and waiting till the chamber with the bullet ends his suffering, dismal existence.

He shouldn’t be thinking like this, he knows. Shaun needs his father, after all. But Shaun is miles away in Philadelphia with his mother. He could just end it all now, rejoin the one whom he feels an unexplainable affection towards. But he cannot. The universe seems determined to keep him tethered here, as if his whole life now is some cruel joke and the fracturing of his soul and mind is the punchline.

And, as though fate is goading him on, Ethan finds himself in front of a certain gravestone, the one that brought him here. He should have been here earlier, he should have attended the funeral, but he couldn’t. Halfway to D.C., he had to stop and turn around. His heart was too heavy, he had nearly crashed on account of how blurred his vision became due to the constant stream of tears flowing down his face. But, finally, after practically begging Grace to take Shaun for a few days so he could make the drive, he is here.

Slowly, he kneels, a trembling hand reaching out and tracing the inscription.

Norman Jayden   
August 1977 - October 2011

A thousand invisible knives seem to pierce their way through his flesh upon reading the name engraved on the stone.

The rain falls harder; to Ethan it seems as if the sky is crying with him. How he wishes that he had something, anything tangible left of the agent. But the ARI glasses that Jayden had been known to use were lost when he died, and he is unsure whether or not they have yet been recovered. All Ethan has are memories, of the determination in the young agent’s eyes - a shade of blue not too dissimilar from his own - when he freed him, of his peculiar accent, of his gentle voice, of the soft texture of his hands….

He wants to speak, but there are no words. What do you say when your preoccupation with rescuing your child leads ultimately to the death of the only person you could trust, a person you, despite rare and fleeting interactions, believed you loved? What do you say when there is no one left to forgive you, no one to understand and share in your grief?

Even if Norman could speak to him now, if somehow he appeared as if summoned by Ethan’s desires to see him once more, the bereaved father knows he does not deserve to be forgiven. Norman’s death, as with that of his eldest son, will be a burden he carries with him forever now.

Norman Jayden’s life was tragically ended merely three weeks prior. And any week that Ethan lives through will never be the same. As he resigns to these facts, a singular thought, perhaps one of his last, manifests itself within his shadowed, sorrowful mind.

 

He despises the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry  
> Why is my first work Northan angst  
> w h y


End file.
